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In the 12th century the estate was called Hjaullaut, which is connected with Löten, the name of the huge fertile plain which stretches from Öljaren northwards to Lake Hjälmaren.
Julita's early history is well-known since the king enfeoffed this royal estate to various prominent people.
Wellknown names in Swedish history, such as Göran Persson, favourite of Erik XIV (1560-68), are connected with Julita. The first known owner was the son of Erik the Holy, King Knut Eriksson who c. 1180 gave the royal estate over to the Cistercian Order. An abbey was founded where the manor is now.
Excavations in the early 1970s have given us a clear picture of how the abbey looked. A number of re-mains are preserved in the south wing.
During the time of Gustavus Vasa (1523-60) the manor once more became a royal estate but from 1527 went through the hands of various families.
From 1662 onwards Julita was owned by the Palbitzki family.
The last descendants of the family sold the estate in 1877 to the merchant Johan Bäckström and so began a new chapter in the history of Julita. His son, Lieutenant Arthur Bäckström, was the last private owner of Julita. He was passionately interested in cultural heritage and developed a museum area in the park belonging to the manor.
In accordance with the terms of his will the whole estate, including the agricultural and forest lands, went to the Nordiska Museet on the death of Lieutenant Bäckström in 1941. Since then the Manor House has been open to visitors, and here they are able to get a faithful impression of how an extensive traditional Sörmland manorial estate worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Julita's greatest value from a cultural heritage point of view lies in its entirety: a large estate with active agriculture, forestry and fishing plus traces of the earlier concept of a selfsufficient estate.
After a devastating fire in 1745 the present Manor House and adjacent wings were erected on the site of the earlier buildings. The wings are of late Baroque style, while the Manor House is Neo-classical, and was finished in 1750. It has thereafter been extended on various occasions and between 1895 and 1920 took on its present form. All the facades were renovated in 1974. The Manor House shows how a large Sörmland manor might have looked c. 1900. Included in the guided tour are Arthur Bäckström's study, the Blue Saloon, the dining room, the library, the music gallery, etc.
The Museum was built in the park between 1926 and 1930. Its distinctive architecture is taken from the picture of Julita painted by Allaert van Everdingenin the 1660s.
There is a copy of the painting in the Manor House; the original hangs in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
In the Museum are a number of upperclass interiors, and also displays and interiors from peasant life, particularly from Sörmland. One room in the Museum is devoted to Henning Forsman (1870-1956), the estate cabinetmaker. He lived in one of the estate cottages and made much of the furniture for the Manor House in his workshop often copying illustrations in newspapers and books.
Arthur Bäckström created a Skansen (open-air museum) in a small area of the park just by the shore of Lake Öljaren. It comprises some ten buildings, mainly from the estate. Their exteriors are almost untouched, but inside they have been altered to make room for the Lieutenant's large collections.
There has been a brickworks on the Julita Estate since the middle of the 18th century. Production took place on the same spot up to 1932. The buildings, which consist of a drying store and kiln plus a dwelling for the brickmaker, still remain, and were restored to working order in 1974. The bricks used to be made in the summer for the maintenance of the estate. There is also a lime-kiln and lime store.
A circular tour of the park and out into the nearby surroundings, using the special circumstances prevailing at Julita as the starting point the farm buildings, for instances were put up in the 1870s and are not up to the standard of modern agricultural requirements. Information on Swedish farming today is given too.
The church was built 1931-32 in direct connection with the Museum. It is a popular church for weddings and christenings. Weddings can be arranged by contacting the church office (pastorsexpedition) : Tel 0150/910 23.
The Orchard at Julita is maintained as a living "archive" for the different varieties of apples and pears of the Lake Mälaren region; these have been collected by the Nordic gene bank for agricultural and garden plants. The garden is both a cultural heritage from the past and of importance for future plantbreeding work. Som sixty different varieties of apples and pears have been collected and grafted on to the trunks of saplings. Each variety is very fully described. The season will end with the Julita Fruit Days, when open house will be held in the Museum for advice and expert opinions, mainly on varieties of apples.
In co-operation with various agricultural organizations and the Sörmland County Agricultural Committee Agriculture Day is arranged on a regular basis to take place on the last Saturday in July. This year Agriculture Day celebrates its tenth anniversary. The programme has interesting features for the whole family.
The fire museum shows the sort of assistance people had in the olden days for firefighting and the ways in which they tried, by taking precutions and making inspections, to protect themselves from fires. Catastrophes caused by fires in several Swedish towns during the latter part of the 19th century led to modernisation of fire brigades and fire insurance. An important asset for the museum is the authentic environment where the fireengine a Packard 1928 with its fireextinguisher stands ready for turnout in the same way as it did earlier on for almost 30 years. By siting the Julita Fire Museum in the old fire station the Nordiska Museet and the County Fire Insurance Company aim to preserve the memory of this era and the importance of the voluntary fire brigade.
Cheese and butter were made in the estate dairy (1883-84) up to 1929. The building has been restored and fitted out as a dairy museum in cooperation with the Swedish Dairies Association and ARLA. Today it looks just as it did in the 1920s. In the large dairy is the equipment and machinery which was used for the separating and curdling of the milk for cheesemaking. Butter production is shown in the adjoining rooms. An audiovisual programme shows how a modern dairy, controlled by computers, works, and contrasts this with a presentation of manuallycontrolled methods at Julita.
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